Podcast: Economics of 5G and NYC's connectivity masterplan

Light Reading's Phil Harvey, Mike Dano and Kelsey Ziser join the podcast to discuss some of the more popular recent submissions to Light Reading's The 5G Exchange site.

Launched last summer, The 5G Exchange's mission is to provide industry decision makers, such as global communications service providers, OEMs and enterprise IT executives, with a vetted and approved educational resource repository to inform them of emerging trends and technologies enabled by 5G. Hosted content on The 5G Exchange includes white papers, presentations, videos, blogs, case studies and press releases. Submit content to The 5G Exchange here.

The Light Reading crew debates which industries could experience the biggest economic benefits from 5G deployments, if 5G can be considered a "green" technology, the connectivity challenges New York City faces in reducing the digital divide, and more.

"5G in New York City will be a great mode of connectivity when and where they can use it, but it's not the thing they're hanging their hat on," says Harvey. "Other cities have said 5G will be the thing that propels them forward, but [NYC] seems to be more interested in getting everyone to a very basic level of connectivity and participating as citizens, and once we get that, we can move the entire city forward."

Dano also touches on where investing in 5G could be overkill. In the case of manufacturers utilizing IoT devices on pallets, for example, Dano says using 5G to track assets would be like "bringing a bazooka to a knife fight."

The Light Reading podcast is available on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and SoundCloud.

— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading